My Last Letter For Ate Dyn

Ate Dyn, I will miss you. In my heart, I kept alive a hope that I will get to visit you at your house in V&G and introduce you to the man I married. I imagined that I will bring you a gasa of books and also maybe borrow some of yours, just like old times. I miss our conversations and emails. I miss your wisdom and understanding. You seemed to know something about anything yet never made me feel like I was not smart enough to converse with you. I wish we’d met earlier, much earlier. Our moms knew each other a long time ago, but for some reason, we did not meet until Ipil. We shared a cab ride to the airport on our way to Tacloban. That day was very special to me. I just knew we’d be good friends. It’s not everyday your intuition gives you a clear hint like this.

We went on an ukay-ukay shopping spree…was it in Cubao or Quiapo? Some details are lost on me but I will forever remember sharing that day with you. I wish we had more time to share, more conversations to spend. Now I must accept that I will not see you anymore but I can continue to love and be inspired by you. From where you are, I must believe that you can still receive my love and still understand how much you are missed by everybody.

I am grateful for knowing you and being your friend. You are a wonderful soul, Ate Dyn. Really one of a kind. I cannot imagine why your former colleagues at UP Tacloban treated you unfairly. They were lucky to have worked by your side, your students were lucky to have learned from you. I can only aspire to be as wise and humble and thoughtful and kind as you.

I’ll see you again someday. In a place of no suffering and no sadness, we will share the stories we did not get to share. We’ll take jeepney rides and go shopping, enjoy the inuman and kainan that we did not get to experience together. If not this, then the heavenly equivalent will do. You are home now and I am truly happy for you, even though my heart is sad now because it misses you and your leaving still feels like a loss. Say hi to your mama and papa for me. Thanks again for everything, Ate Dyn!

Much love,
Bing-o

For B.

You sometimes travel to a quiet place,
I am right by you, eye to eye.
But only your soul goes where it goes,
So I sit, look, wonder and count your hairs.

I sometimes trick myself
Into sadness, into shock, into dreaming
And maybe you question
“Is she really the one I can protect?”

These and other things happen to us,
Gritty bits in our slice of forever.
But the rest….ah, the rest,
Sweetness one cannot imagine without a bite.

Exactly Why

The monster is after me again,
Running right behind your nervous laughs
Hiding in the bushes of your subconscious smiles
Camouflaged in your careless words and story telling

You still speak of her with unique excitement
No matter that your tales have left you wounded and hopeless
Until now you still remember with sweet fondness
In spite of every bitter lie and empty apology

I am not jealous for the situation you are deep in
Past loves I can describe, in detail and sans any longing, a precious freedom:
There is no need at all to erase what happened, indeed it can’t be done!
(Entropy is time’s arrow. Pretty vase holding flowers. Broken vase. Thousand little pieces.)
But our reactions to memories can transform.

You are not there yet, my love.
And I will likely wait as long as it takes,
Wait in joy, in sweetness, in hope.
No matter that you may never get there,
And in spite of how it will hurt me to know exactly why.

Beginning Again for the Last Time

I can choose to nurture this ache or sensor it perfectly.
Today, I can relish vulnerability – lick it dry and until tasteless,
Maybe tomorrow care less that my love is not really completely mine.

Why is life steeply divided: before me and you, and the present?
Obsolete but happy memories, an unresolved dream or two
Parts of you I will never occupy.

Time, as always, will have its way of presenting compelling evidence.
Sad that as a companion, its strides would not keep beat with my heart.

If I am to be with you ‘til I depart, then let us haste just a bit!
Better for me to amass hours and years and seconds in your love, in a blur.
In the middle of it all, I might finally feel safer.

But if our story is to be short-lived,
Will the universe allow me to travel with light?
Just to tame time and keep you longer than can be perceived.
All will be relative, but to me, the difference is the world.

Today

Starting today, a part of her will always be inaccessible to him. He may not miss it or need it, but it will be hers to keep from him --

Just in case he forgets about her, this part of her will not care, ache or mourn. Even in better times, it will stay inert while the rest of her will feel so loved and cherished;

On some obscure, unpronounced level, she will not know him at all. She will be his all her life, never completely but more than enough.

What Is Our Concern?

Is it a concern that we are now apart,
Even waking and sleeping in turns?
The deepest longings made even longer
By garbled voices desperate to mate.

Is it a problem that after years of waiting,
We are forced to wait some more?
To spread existing love over the days and miles,
And hope it will be enough, or even grow.

Isn't the trouble with love its surviving all space and time,
And our frail selves can only struggle to endure just as well?
Yet if any two souls had a chance at catching up,
Maybe love itself will wait for us slow dancers.

Bath Time

Midnight bubble baths
Have me owning to great ambivalence --
Wanting and not wanting you;
Feeling both the victim and the hero.

How the tiny candlelights slow dance
To shadow waters lapping against my legs
Lulling and licking old pains
And then illuminating new ones.

Why does it hurt to admit you have forgotten
When I was getting ready to do so myself?
Maybe because I could not succeed after trying so hard
And you found it easy without even meaning to.

If only certain memories
Can shrivel like finger tips soaked too long,
Or collapse like stale air-starved bubbles,
I could then wash all of you and me away.

The Past

Because I fear our story will end as fast as it is beginning, I decided to write a short letter.

If only to create a sense of geniuneness, or leave a proof when time washes out the emotional remains,

This short letter will hopefully remind me: passion, blind but true, once drove me to you,

Once set the stage where my dreams all played their roles outstandingly.

______________________


Dear,

Thank you for a wonderful weekend. I did not imagine that our time together in those few hours could fill me with a happiness I have missed for a few years already.

Thank you for holding my hand, for every embrace, every kiss, for keeping enough distance to let me know I'm not just wanted but respected too. You said I am an affectionate person, and said it so lovingly I could not help but blush (and promise myself to be even more tender).

Could it be I am only allowing my deeply buried longings their ghostly take at life? Am I using 'us' to rescue my fast-jading heart? Whatever else excuse I might find, it still is true that I like and admire you in a special way.

We could come through, you know. But as it is, my whole being is just reeling from the happy and bright sensations you sparked for me. I cannot yet ask for too much. Or hope too much.

Thank you for finding me. I have been waiting for you.

M.

Committing to Write

It used to be that I took to writing like a chain smoker resorts to a stick after a hearty meal: it's the first and only activity that can appease the uncontrollable restlessness. Countless journals and a couple of blogs later, the urge has quieted down to an itch too gentle to mind. With the long hours at work and the ever convenient TV I just bought and placed in my bedroom, I have not bothered to scratch a blank page for the last few months.

But now I'm back and not exactly by choice. There just comes a time when we hurt too much and the pain drives us back to what was once natural and instinctive. Tonight is one such time. I come seeking comfort in capturing my thoughts and putting them into neat sentences, hoping that they will validate my struggle. Maybe I can dilute the sadness by taking it to more spaces. My heart is about to burst.

A good friend had to break the bitter truth to me: it is always going to hurt. Whether I give entrance passes to happy memories right now or whether they sneak up on their own from behind one busy day in the far future, it will always hurt me to remember him. Somehow I try to convince myself that there will be another one who will hold and kiss me the same way that he perfectly and effortlessly did. It could be possible that I will feel safe, protected and cherished all over again. And maybe next time, the person who sweeps me off my feet will hang around until the Maker sweeps me off to the next world.

Among the many dreams he made come true for me, it's his confident and easy embrace that I miss the most. I lost count of the times his long arms encircled me but I am certain that each time was complete bliss. I was very aware of the special things his love offered me but not of the fact that his heart can change and stop beating for me. Sadly, what I was unprepared for happened too soon -- one fair-weather day, I was busy being me (thinking there was nothing I could do that will make him let go) and he just suddenly decided to disappear.

There must have been warning signs all around, just as real and true as his loving embraces. If I did not have stars in my eyes or empty wishes in my pockets, I may have known that he was never in it for the long haul. What's a girl to do after being showered with the kind of affection she has waited for all her life? Apparently, one thing she should not do is squander her trust.

Perhaps, with the hundreds of relationships that die every second all around the globe, not everyone is fortunate enough to get closure. Viewed this way, I am just a statistic. Only one of the many who will sleep with a broken heart tonight yet wake up, like each day in our collective lives, complete persons all on our own. The sad thing is only the outliers know of their inherent wholeness.

I still have several items that belong to him: a cellphone charger, a few shirts, an old sweater, the bottle of medicine for his sensitive tummy. These articles mean little to him but I keep them in the top shelf of my closet. (Just in case he comes back for them?) They are nowhere near plain sight but in my mind I can still picture him putting on his wrinkled shirt, reaching for his ringing phone or taking off the big old green sweater after shoveling the snow off our cars.

Someday soon, I will know what to do with his stuff and my memories. Hopefully before wintertime.

Like A Hot Potato

"Once he gets his way with a woman, he drops her like a hot potato. Isn't that funny? Like a hot potato." -- a line from Nine Lives (2004)

I should be beyond self-pity already. According to a reasonable schedule I fixed for myself, I must be at the happy-to-be-single-again stage right about now. What's holding me back? Certainly nothing extra-ordinary that the relationship offered me while it existed. No actual 'facts' make me cling to the happy first months. The culprit is my imagination which earlier succeeded to build a good, larger-than-life image of him. As creative as my ego claims I am, there's just no teaching me how to deconstruct my notion of having met my perfect fit.

I'm not saying he is the only one for me. There could be others too, only I havent met them yet. There are many 'perfect fits' for all of us, that has been my theory since five years ago. If you are lucky to be with a 'perfect fit' at the perfect time, that's as perfect as it goes. No perfect persons, just perfect fits. It might only be fair that I linger for a while, having lost one who made me happy like no one has done yet. It's that form of hopelessness when you watch a balloon escape from your hand and go straight up. There's no way to retrieve it but you can't help but look.

Something in him or me (or us) somehow 'rearranged' around the time we stopped rushing to see each other during our free time. Not seeing him for weeks on end was not exactly my idea, but he was pressed with many concerns. I knew I could not always be a priority. My patience was running thin, but there was still enough of that to go around when he suddenly just dropped me like a hot potato. No goodbye, no explanation, no decent parting of ways. I liken the event to what they call 'sudden death' in some games. Only, my feelings died slowly. Painfully and slowly, like they could not be hurried along by any force or influence. Not even by hatred for his thoughtlessness, or by relief for gaining back my freedom.

If he didnt lack for courage to actually say goodbye, I may not be as hurt as I still am now. But then again, I'm basing my attitude on other people's actions and decisions, when I can freely choose to be be happy no matter what. It is slightly overwhelming for me to be too optimistic at this point. He has all the resources to contact me yet he has not done so. Leaving me to question if the vowed affections were simply scarce or in fact a total lie. The wellness of my being does not depend on a reconciliation, but it will at least tell me that I was not terribly wrong to think he is a man of substance, a perfect fit. When I did sense a lack of openness from his side, I foolishly took that for granted due to an excessive amount of hope. Or naivete. (Whatever it was, I had a lot of.)

I could not blame myself too much though. It's never your fault if someone can't love you enough. Feeling like a hot potato dropped on a cold floor, I can only wonder how I survived the fall and what can make anyone pick me up again.

Cool Loneliness

Let me embrace cool loneliness, in your presence or absence,
I am alone and unclaimed, my tears neither roll nor run:
In the calmness of abandon, they do nothing but reflect and echo
Unreplicated witty banter and laughter, our happy beginnings.

Wanted: Cash and Human Companion

For someone new to get-up-and-go business travels, I am doing pretty well I guess. The flights are booked, reservations are made, bags are packed, spirits are brazed. But when it comes to making the most out of the experience, there are a few things (along the lines of green bucks and wanderlust) that I lack.

The financial element is self-explanatory. Unless I am either Paris or Nicole being followed around by a camera crew on a cashless trip to the country (but at the same time making money while doing it), it is obvious that I need enough money to get around.

Aside from dinero, I do require at least one companion to make travel count as more than being displaced from point A to B and back again. For example, I can never really admit that I am having a fantastic time when I am dining out on my own. Or when I am swimming a few laps in the hotel's indoor pool or walking down the quaint streets of an unfamiliar city. I simply do not like being alone. I will bear it if I have to, for the sake of getting something done. But I will be surprised if I do get to enjoy the experience.

Some people like this kind of alone time. It is an effective way to look inward, take stock of personal gains big or small, reflect and mull on things needing that kind of intimate attention. For me though, travel is not the perfect time to be by myself. I do my recollections and heavy thinking while riding the train to the city, sitting on the throne, or at night when Mr. Sandman cannot bring me a dream just yet.

Maybe I am too dependent on other people - friends, family, significant others. I just cannot validate an experience as being pure joy unless I'm sharing it with someone. They say Cancers retreat to their shells most of the time and they like it there. I must be a different kind of crab because any shell is the last place that I will want to be no matter the occassion.

There I was, settled in the porch of a nice restaurant having a healthful and expensive meal. The weather was never better, cars and pedestrians were passing by once in a while, and the music was a string of nostalgic songs reminiscent of charming high school years. For some reason, I still could not feel happy. Then a very dear song came on and I could not resist grabbing the phone and dialing a friend who, thousands of miles away, was enjoying early Sunday morning in bed. I knew I would wake her up but I was also sure that she would come around soon enough to cheer me up.

And she did. An appetizer and thirty minutes later, we've covered all the basics (though not as deeply as desired) and we hung up, two lonely souls satiated beyond explanation. I finished my meal in peace, still alone but feeling so much better.

Poster Girl Woes

Haute couture fits me ill,
Only the wrong cuts hug
These curves begging to be ironed,
Stapled, melted, or perhaps, vanished?

Manufactured colors and textures
Loathe my skin long past glowing.
Spots and lines, however,
Are welcomed like feared kings
Or perhaps, cherished friends?

And still, I'm here
Looking over the world through
Honest eyes stuck to glossy paper,
Captured in a moment of awkward non-beauty
But ever refusing to feel ugly...
Perhaps too proud?

Origin

What prods the artist's mind
Love or the lack of it?
Pieces of gears countering each other,
Days, people, choices --
A maze of parallel events
That lead to uncomplex, beautiful creations.

Or is it internal combustion,
No other mover than the Maker Himself?
From thought to action:
Genes, cells, photons, waves, intellect and will,
Conspire, contribute their share
Make up what us ordinary minds call art.

Why This Farewell

goodbyes are usually dense, like a small immensely heavy marble that pulls on a vast infinite mattress -- a pinpoint hole, as deep as it is unnoticeable;

watching her walk away, hanging up, pulling away (all for good), events that mark endings but themselves in memory never end;

and time runs out only for those who give themselves none, multiplies when it senses that you wait longingly, stops to let the ridiculous linger;

how could it not have agreed with us? the world we lived in yesterday lies frozen in that unknown but intimate plane, forever to stop existing.

like a black hole that theoretically calculates to spit you out, only it knows nothing of time that it swallows you endlessly.

Thoughts in Transit

I.

The path that leads me to you
Catches up with my careful steps
But the few feet ahead is always unpaved --
Like a constant clearing that travels with me,
Such that, how far or close
I am not yet allowed to know.

The path that leads you to me
I guess is also rough
We're taking blind random chances,
Hoping to intersect somewhere
Before the roads become too unfriendly
Or our hearts too weary.

II.

Love-bound and hopeful,
We could be the accidental tourists
Books, poems, songs and all art celebrate --
In transit, find home
In each other's strangeness, safety
And perhaps something more.

The Beginning

Your face recedes unto itself
My memory cannot touch it yet
But my skin can still feel you
And your voice beats in my ears
How close were we to losing each other
A missed train, another door
I might have entered
The flight of stairs where we met
Halfway.

To me, you exist in three planes.
Someday, if chance permits again
We could live in one world.

Involuntary Indecision

Breath that smells like plaque
Invalidates my afternoon daydreams,
Delightful arms and fingers
Throw off my disdain for the unmanly voice
That forms sounds too lame for my image --

From hate to curious liking in two minutes,
Past the livid, the lewd, the laughable,
In various degrees of intensity and length....
Hormones take me there, and back.

Sketchy Profile

What do you call a girl
who combs her long hair just once in the morning with a wide-toothed comb;
who loves playing with fancy beads and words;
who drinks coffee but is rarely high-strung;
who cannot keep a blush?

What do you call a girl
who feels lonely in spite of cheerfulness personified in her;
who hurts so easily and hates herself for it;
who has been different and awkward all her life;
who thinks no one sees her in an excited way?

What do you call a girl
who looks tough and solid;
who talks without flair but laughs with her all;
who dresses nice inspite of everything;
who sings only when she's sad or in love?

Have you met her, the ordinary girl?
Always out of place in wide corners.
I'd like to tell her unhappiness is not permanent,
But it will scar if experienced too long.

Hopefully, she will believe it for an infinite second.

Danger Sits Beside Me

In the corner of my eye, danger pounds unaware
on the keypad, his head every now and then,
While in my mind, he pounds in earnest,
in thoughts I cannot even unwrap with words,
My body squirming in resignation,
resisting, relishing, reviling,
A few feet and a world away,
-- heart, fingers, veins, juices
Beating in surfaces like November rain,
Winning the races, burning the wires.

Amber Fresh

Try
Imagine a more painful longing,
So far, in our combined lifetime,
Than this tonight (or today, for you).

Had I known,
I would've dissected, drugged with formalin,
Stuffed and stitched
Our last embrace.

Or zip-locked
The scent, feel and taste
Of our last kiss.

(And who knows for how long these would last us?)

What is love without physical presence?
Didn't Someone understand this
When He promised to visit
In the millions of miracles that now happen daily?

Ours is a less perfect love
And we are not so great
To be above several laws --
Fate, physics, our own humanity...

But still, couldn't we try
To reunite,
Spare the world of substantial despair?

For the Man of My Dreams (By Snoring Beauty)

Come to me right after midnight
While evenly I breathe, deceivingly calm.
Tiptoe into my dream
Where I already am,
Anxious, listlessly waiting for you.

There, fill me with deep happiness
That my sleeping heart does not know in the day
Hold my hand, deliberately
But tenderly, like no one awake has ever done.

Bask and delight in my love
Understand that, though mute in the real world,
All the cells of my body long for you.
And in any plane or dimension,
Your affections are what nourish me.

I have resolved not to wake until you reach my dreamland.

Though physically I would go through notions
Resembling life (toiling, hurting, overcoming)
Remember darling, that's only me
Sleep-living.

So please, at last, come tonight,
If not, maybe tomorrow at siesta.

Pure Coffee

Bits of beans burst into bitterness
In my mouth, the memory hung –
Mulling over recent conversations
While crushed ice dance around my unfeeling tongue…

Sitting still, wearing the same head
Old and never once out of disorder.
Only caffeine this strong understands, condones,
Thinking companion that feeds my lust to wonder.

Once, this friend pulled one on me –
Speeded up my heart, beat it to mush:
Sensations that could have been love
But ended with the adrenaline rush.

(What a joke to orchestrate,
Both funny and sad at the same time…
Try now a pure coffee experience!
Intense in a way most sublime.)

Razlyubit

The Russians have a term for that feeling for someone you once loved but now do not. It's razlyubit. The article from which I got this trivia claimed that no other language had an equivalent term for such emotion. Maybe Russians are extra-nostalgic. I'm full-bloodied Filipina but I am familiar with razlyubit.

The other day, while surfing the net, I came upon an interesting page that linked me to my past -- Matt's blog. Chronicles of something. Reading his thoughts on spirituality, lost chances, love, human frailty, I realized I could still recognize him in those short paragraphs, could still imagine him explaining those exact words to me. But that's about it. My many attempts to build a new friendship after our falling out was met with Matt's efforts to completely erase me out of his life. Our actions bore the same intensity in terms of determination and sincerity. In the end, I lost that battle.

I consider our alienation as one of my failures in life. It matters little that I can't honestly pinpoint which event made him turn cold. To my memory, we never had a fight. There were the silly things young people like us stumbled into, the kind which elicit awkwardness and rude awakenings at worst. Having lived through them unscathed, I laugh at those recollections like I would at anecdotes of my childhood and adolescence. I'm unsure (to say the least) if Matt sees things the way I do now. Seven years after our last real conversation, he still avoids me like the plague.

This is the dilemma I face now: how to tell Matt how much I appreciated all he did for me, how I struggled to accommodate his willed absence, how I'll still value his friendship (if only he'd give me another chance at it). I am leaving in a month, with no sure schedule for the flight back. I might be gone for a good 10 years. Time might erode my inherent naive goodwill and find me staring at the ashes of a bridge I could have crossed.

Is this exercise of explaining my side, searching for questions, settling what-ifs, even necessary? If Matt thinks our memories together, however confusing and illogical, are best buried and uncommemorated, does that disqualify my longing to make peace and amends? I might not be able to bear yet another rejection.

Now that my life's direction is hinged on entirely different priorities (Matt not being one of them), I admit that I could go on never having to settle things with him, and for that, I wouldnt be a lesser person. My stubborn desire to see him smile at me again just means that I consider him a good man. He stands out among my peers. He taught me many things, albeit indirectly and in such a subtle manner that we were not aware of it at that time. I do not hope to gain his love again but I do wish for his friendship.

Razlyubit is an emotion hard to explain, its definition does not even describe exactly how it feels. Is it a kind of hallowness, a mild distributed pain, a strange loneliness or a peaceful but happy numbness? I guess it varies from person to person, from one broken relationship to another. For now, I seek comfort in the invention of this word. It means I am not the only one in the world over who feels this way tonight.

The Oxymoron of Ochokoy Tralala

If I lure myself to believe that in the first instant God thought of me (thereby sparking the chain of events that is my existence) He decided too of creating another entity to annoy, delight, maim, comfort, crush and appreciate me all at the same time, I would have no doubt that that person was Ochokoy.

In a worldly perspective, this can't be true because Ochokoy was brought into this world by his elite and conservative parents a couple of months before my own two middle-class, almost-modern parents delivered me. Still, it is said that God can't be a prisoner to a primitive concept such as time. However many and large a loophole anyone can find in my theory of Ochokoy's purpose in my life, nothing could disprove that we are intricately and messily attached, like the roots of two shrubs planted too close. We compete for nutrients, invade each other's spaces, and if someone was to weed one out, the other would be removed as well. We're too closely wound that I am the one who feels weak when his leaves yellow in the dry months and he is the one to feel overjoyed when I bear some fruit in good weather.

I will have to spare you of more allegory to vegetation. (My creativity is very limited, it's tragic.) Instead, it might help to recount some events between Ochokoy and Kingkong (yes, that's me), if only in a vain attempt to show that ours is a story worth telling (and reading).

Scene 1: Rainy night, Ochokoy is behind the wheel, I'm singing along with Usher.

Ochokoy: Why don't you like using lotion? It's really good for your skin.

Kingkong: Huh? I just don't like the sticky feeling. It's very uncomfortable when it's hot and I sweat easily.

O: That's because you're fat, it's not the lotion.

K (holding on to my temper): Why would you suddenly bring this up now? Does it really bother you?

O: My mom and sisters use lotion. Your skin will dry up and it will age and wrinkle faster. You're just insecure.

K (really perplexed): Insecure? What do you mean insecure? Why are we talking about this?

O (looking somber): Why won't you admit that you just can't afford lotion instead of saying you just don't like to use them.

K (really angry): *&$%^&$#@!!! We have mountains of lotion at home, I just don't like to use them!!!


Scene 2: We are on a 3-day roadtrip with no specific itinerary, just a plan to go as north as possible. Long hours on the road saw us singing to hiphop/r&b, pinoy disco oldies and Andrew E. We witnessed two beautiful sunsets on a very lovely countryside, stopped to buy native delicacies, asked at least 20 people for directions and never once got lost. It was three days of no fighting, only pure adventure, pure gluttony, pure security in each other's company. Not a single spontaneous declaration of love in a new romantic place, just a long continuum of acting out true and deep affections.

Scene 3: The very next day after the grueling (and puzzling?) board exams, I asked Och to play badminton with me at our usual sweat-out spot in Cubao. I needed to detoxify after weeks of reviewing unit operations, chemical process industries, trigonometric identities, interest formulas and loads of other data which chemical engineers are supposed to know. Yet, despite the big dark circles around my eyes that proved the state of semi-catatonia which I was in, the idea of me de-stressing in a nice well-lit badminton court was entirely lost on Ochokoy. He broke into a tantrum over my lousy smashes. At first, it seemed like a harmless suggestion -- to bend the arm this way or that so the shuttlecock moves straight down and not follow a projectile that gives an advantage to the opponent. I took it pretty well but was later on distracted and went on playing the way I played the game for years (since my street-child days in the province). Och was as displeased as a tough coach who felt disrespected. His face rearranged into a scowl, he was so serious he didnt have time to evaluate his choice of coach words. Suddenly, I realized it wasn't about enjoying the afternoon anymore. It was becoming a training for the next Olympics in China. I was so exasperated that I went home even more stressed. He realized his mistake only after I cried in the car on the way back. His idea of saying sorry was to buy me Japanese sweet corn.

Scene 4: Once or twice a week, when I was still in college, Och would come all the way from Mandaluyong to jog with me around the academic oval. Two rounds of old man's trot and we'd go have dinner at someplace "healthful." We kept conversation at a minimum while we jogged but I always looked forward to that moment when he turns to me and tells me how beautiful I look and how he loves to see me run. There's not a lap that goes by without him saying that. He looks like he means it and sometimes bends over to kiss me (with neither of us stopping in our tracks). Covered in sticky sweat and vehicle emissions, I really feel like I could join and win the Ms. Universe pageant. Even if I'm only Best in Sports Attire.

Och has since left me for the Land of Non-fat Milk and Honeybunnies, to build a better life for himself and his future family. He still claims that I am part of his future and that all his sacrifices now will be for own good and comfortable life someday. I just indulge him when he shares these things to me. He is so full of optimism and raring that I dare not intrude his monologues on the ambitions and dreams that he feels he is already living out somewhere in Midwest America. Maybe I am too practical to a fault. It is not a regular thing for me to invest in something nice but shaky. Ochy still behaves like a boy-child sometimes and in that version of himself, I admire the way he saves up for what he wants, the way he depends on me, the way he easily believes that things will work out right just as long as we have each other. Our love is beyond nice and maybe shaky at times but very deep-rooted. There are the other things that we can't control but still matter. Like timing, circumstance and the changing tides. I'm the one who thinks about these variables. I don't allow myself to daydream, I just figured that has to be Ochokoy's job.

Still, we chat almost daily and his opening greeting always goes: Ochykochy tralala! Who wouldn't love a boy like that?

The UP Lagoon taken many long years ago.  

My Abstract Art of A Face 

Opening of the Gates

Peeking so far as my defective lenses can focus
(While trying to look disinterested)
Feeling for a bump in the smooth
Rolling sea of heads and shoulders

No matter that I don't really know
Your face from this far
Or even near.

Heartbeat out-ticking oft-consulted watch,
No sign of the end to this exercise
(Still pretending I'm not really waiting at all
As if sitting here, sipping coffee is my natural form).

No matter that I have imagined this,
Finding you -- oh, pleasant surprise!
Every day, at least six or seven times.

Such things showed up eventually --
Like confusion, resignation, indifference,
Then the urge to pee,
But never you.

Colorblind Date (My First Fiction)

I stumbled into my most recent f*ck up through a social faux pax called a blind date. If not for my innate inability to take myself seriously, I would have allowed the consequences of that date to smother to death my already ailing self-image.

Some good friends do you harm and yet make you feel grateful about it. "Jenny," long time chum and confidante, was in this particularly philantrophic mood when she arranged a dinner date for me and some work slave whose only redeeming quality was his impressive height. The guy towered over me at 6 feet 2 inches, and I loved him the first second I saw him. What can you say, I'm a tall girl of simple pleasures.

At that time, I was actually not 'looking.' The problem with not looking is that people who claim they care for you, do the looking. That I was slowly turning into a recluse and more oftenly fantasizing about obscure Hollywood (sometimes Pinoy) hotties, is beside the point. I did not ask to be 'rescued' because I was doing fine. Friday nights are Bubble Gang nights and Saturday nights are any-good-book-at-hand nights. Charming life, good times.

The equilibrium just had to be shattered with my best interest in Jenny's mind and heart. She claims there were several candidates ruled out for not passing the standards. Irresponsible party-holics, boring nerds, clueless jocks, young and old Scrooges, hypochondriacs, emotional retards, unhygienic-looking slackers and the occasional hetero posers had to be sifted.

How Tall Work Slave made it past Jenny's over-serious scrutiny, I dont exactly know. Maybe some dough changed hands, I'm just not sure from whom and to whom (hear my ailing self-image talking). Figuring out the hustler from the hustlee (?) did not seem practical at that time especially since so-called good friend rushed me to hair and make-up after a phone call from Tall Work Slave who suddenly found a hole in his suffocating schedule. In between black outfits being tried, she spewed the facts: aggressive girls who think aloud and laugh boisterously turn him off (mine's usually hearty, that's different, right?), he's allergic to seafood and beer (poor kid), and his bedtime is 10pm so we have to be home by 9:15 (are you sure he's over 12?). And could I please not be overly sarcastic and dry?

Dry. Three letters that she had the audacity to use to describe me, Vince Vaughn's secret lover. Dry is for old maids who have completely evolved into asexual beings. I'm 23! How can I be dry?! More to prove to Jenny that I was just as juicy as our obviously hot-blooded girlfriends than to meet a decent guy I could possibly like, I went to the date with minimum protest.

Looking back now on that date, I realize several details are lost on me. Who spoke first, the color of his shoes, who ordered the sushi, the chronological order of our conversation AND whatever made him decide not to call me ever again. The rest I remember fully well and I guess that's a bad thing. Too much books and TV has altered my mind on what I knew fully well some years ago when I first had my heart broken. I'm always ready to like someone (despite very obvious flaws or deviations from my standard). I just had to me reminded again that guys, even the good ones, don't see much reason to appreciate me (given, maybe, my larger-than-life flaws). Jenny was right after all, I'm dry as the dessert. Hell, I'm arid. Out of juice (I hope not for life).

We had a great time, Tall Work Slave and I. At least, that's what I made out of it. "Let's go to this place next time. The crowd is great." "I play tennis too! We should play sometime." "It escapes me right now, but I'll text you when I remember the title of that movie."

Words, words, words.

JETLAG

Gray matter swimming in a rippling pool of wine,
My head is the filled crystal glass
That the heavy hand of air has swirled
And sniffed the spirits of.

Patches of color appear in formless shapes
Skipping out of focus, tiptoeing back to dots.

At destination, yawns are deposited.
Thick with promise to calm stir-craziness,
Or anything that reverberates along.

Good that sleep can settle matters,
A few hours more and I will have arrived.

Shy Queer Madness

Coldness blankets my entire body,
Attached to every skin cell, dead or alive.
Yet I perspire inside, sticky sweat trapped
Within pores that had forgotten to breathe.

A while back my scalp jumped
To the sound of steps,
Rushing from behind my neck.

In helpless paranoia, strange longings fill me
Guilt married and divorced twice over to desire,
My sneaky imaginings,
Alive with complicated plans to love you
In secret, until we meet at last.

Art Of Forgetting

In an attempt to ignore my periodic pain,
I decided to forget simple details of you,
One long day at a time.

Your face now lacks its expressive eyes,
Your tall nose now just a flat button,
The mouth I used to love, a rhombus
Irregular, pale and edgy.

Last week I removed your strong hands,
Stitched fingerless triangles to
Rusty iron arms that can’t bend to hug.
Your torso is roll of bubble wrap
Good for poking and pinching
At my fancy and whim.

Your legs are still the same,
Athletic bordering on bulky.
Your funny feet heavy as bricks.
Tomorrow will grow extra toes.
And turn to yellow jelly,
So you could wobble your way around,
Not that you ever firmly stood up for me before.

No matter how you finally turn out to be,
I will forget you, slowly and gracefully.

Fluidized Bed

Falling into place takes time.

Those of us coming from shaken, agitated relationships know that even while we're screaming for rest, the world doesnt stop in its tracks. Absolute kinetic energy is impossible to measure precisely because everything in the universe is in constant motion. We're always moving - moving out, moving on, moving about. We could seem to be at a standstill but still relative to something zooming off in all directions. Who's to say when we're finally settled?

Say we're particles in a column of fluid, swimming downwards (gravity being our guiding force towards 'rest') along with everyone else longing to settle down. There is no straight path to follow. I could simply keep on bumping off random particles that come my way - some will displace me upward again, others will spin the lights out of me.

A damned few stay suspended, they are not heavy enough. So they serve as traps to passersby who have no strong desire to reach the final bottom, the travellers too tired to move on and the motion-sick minds afraid of falling some more.

There are too many distractions on the way to peace. Gone are my days of raw exuberance and I know I have come of age to yearn for tranquility this much. In all the movement, I have lost many things good and bad. What's left of me, I'm taking home with more conscious care.

It's a crazy ride down. But eventually I will fall into place.

Keeping House

Slowly, the demons are packing up,
Throwing last glances at the memories that mock me.
I offer the benefit of a struggle
But like perfect gentlemen, they feign loss
At what could be their smooth victory.

Believably resolute goodbyes all around,
(“Will you miss us?” says one.)
They are leaving me here
Inside the grime-covered walls of my mind.
To be at peace, at last.

Aaaah….more breathing space,
Less noise, more light.
I could suddenly clearly read,
Vandals written by Fate herself years ago:
Between “Hello world!” and “I was here,”
“Your happiness is nobody’s business but your own.”

Catchy slogan, sadly cast with the familiar and forgotten.
Too much dirt has attached to the panes
That divide my sense of reason and the bizarre.
Self-pride is dusty,
Conviction stands in a cob-webbed corner.
Regrets lie about in graceless heaps,
Ghosts of pure intentions murdered in their sleep
Hover above broken promises and discarded faiths.

I feel the urge to keep house –
Scrub, wipe, clean, mop, brush, sweep my off-kilter wits
Bleach organisms to extinction,
Rearrange furniture, junk faulty articles,
Polish surfaces till they blind me just glistening.

So it is always this way:
I find work to do when the demons go away,
That can’t be hurried just enough,
Because they always come back too soon,
Tanned, beaming and nowhere near collapse.

Only sorrow doesn’t take a holiday.

Love However

I’m not sure how many times over I have watched the whole full length of the movie Love Actually. Between the 7th and 8th viewing, realizing that I still very much enjoy every scene and every dialogue, I lost (the urge to) count.

Love is so universal that however different our roles at any given time – wife, suitor, secret admirer, seductress, heartbreaker, dreamer – we feel the same longing, same joy, same frustration as the next guy.

Very recently I took on a role I’ve never experienced before. I was the hopeless crusher to my high school best friend, the elusive prize to my college suitor, the devoted girlfriend to my ex, the secret admirer to my ideal guy (who chose the path of single-blessedness, bless him). I have been all these but until three weeks ago (to the day and hour) I haven’t been the Other Woman.

Now I am a believer and follower of relationships based on honesty, trust and fidelity. At least I want to make it known that I never even dreamed of being a player. If men were shoes (*duh!*....sorry guys, but at least I love and go crazy over shoes), I don’t like trying on so many all at the same time. I don’t walk on shoes that don’t fit at all, and those that do fit, I walk on for a mile. It will have every chance it needs to make me keep it. The latest ‘it’ ran out of chances so I’m out shopping again.

And so let me narrate how I got myself into this not so pleasant Other Woman character. A woman out shopping for new shoes is not exactly hoping to snatch a pair under another woman’s feet. Some people do get a kick out of sneaky things like that but I’m not one of them. So my friend, whom I shall call Mr. K, quite cute, definitely charming and very much attached, was not even window shopping-worthy.

Here’s one aspect of boy-girl relationships I don’t fully dig. How do you respond to undeniable physical/sexual tension that seriously means to conduct high voltage electricity through an unlikely (thermo)couple (i.e. me and Mr. K)? Do you ignore and stay inert as possible? OR do you get drunk, party and chill like normal friends do and THEN stress about the damn tension only the morning after?

What the funk happened?!! Some arms, shoulders, fingers, legs and heads wandered teasingly about. (My sensibilities won't allow me to be too graphic, hehe. And if you're imagining a titillating scene, for sure THAT did not happen.) But definitely he looked at me seductively. And so heavily that it made me dizzy. I have never been gazed at like that before. I have passed by countless unruly construction workers or tambays sa kanto but there was never a more smoldering look.

Still, even with the encouragement vested upon me by 10 shots of brandy, I couldn’t bring myself to answer his unmistakable seduction with my own building passion. We stayed up all night, just the two of us, too close for comfort, until the sun was up. It would be my life’s version of Before Sunrise (actually Before Everyone Else Wakes Up is less dramatic but more appropriate). Only nothing really definite happened. He could not cross the wire of unfaithfulness, I could not kiss his face just centimeters away.

I guess it’s because love however knows boundaries after all. We are constantly hindered by insecurities, norms, rules and even pride. And maybe, love is just a general term we attribute to that perennial loneliness we feel as normal humans and all the effort we exert to fight it. It’s not always right. It’s not always true. And for most of us, it doesn’t even last long enough.

It’s true that love actually is all around, as my favorite movie asserts. I just want to add that love however also slips away even from those who want and need it the most. Cheerless girls shopping for new shoes included.

Hibernation Nation

Everyday for 2 weeks now, I have been spending an average of 12 hours in bed. I’m neither sick nor depressed. It was simply that occasion called Sembreak.

This got me thinking because I could now predict what will happen to me once, God forbid at least for the next 40 years, I become permanently unemployed. I will certainly deteriorate! My eyes, seemingly disconnected from my nervous system, take on a will of their own. Open from 12nn to 2pm, closed from 2pm to 5:30pm, serviceable from 5:30pm to 1:00am, unavailable from 1:00am to 12nn. Or some silly schedule like that which I have no control over. And the rest of my body parts follow suit. The only rebel would be my heart over which some guilt and good intentions reside. What about the poems and essays I have been longing to write once I had the free time? Or the movies I was looking forward to watching? What about my office desk (posing as a biodiverse mini-jungle), which I promised to organize, clean and revamp? Revamp my snoring ass. I think I AM sick, after all. Help.

What makes me feel worse about my condition is that none of my friends seem to be undergoing the same thing. I’m alone in this, it seems. They’re all out there. And I don’t even know what they do out there. At least they’re out.

So thank God that sembreak is over. Alleluia! I haven’t written a single thing, I caught only 2 movies on DVD and my mini-jungle of an office desk still looks flourishing but at least I can get out of bed now. This time The Eyes cooperate with me. They respect work (the compensated kind) but they don’t respect me, my hobbies, or whatever it is I want do for free. They know the difference.

I’m not quite ready for work yet. Over the break, I must have lost my touch, stage presence and/or authority to teach. Sleeping did something to my brain cells. Were my wires reformatted, defragged maybe? Or did they simply rust away? It looks like I'll be starting from scratch. But this gotta be better than experiencing the world from creepy uninterpretable dreams. It will be hard and I’ll be happy because it’s time I start living again.

Chikka Minute

Hi! Alam mo ba na kahapon ay pinutulan kmi ng ilaw??? Hanggang kanina pag-alis ko ng bahay, di pa rin na-rereconnect. Nagkandila na lang kmi tapos ang init init. kahapon kmi naputulan, kahapon din kmi nagbayad,pero di na nila binalik...

naisip tuloy namin na masisira ata mga gatas namin sa ref. (hilig na kc naming magcereal and fresh milk sa bahay). Kaninang umaga bago pumunta ng plant visit to Balara Filter 2, i consumed all my milk. syempre tinikman ko kung sira na nga, hindi pa naman. Then i went to UP to meet my students, tapos lakbay na kmi papunta Filter2. Para akong Mother Duck na sinusundan ng tatlumpong ugly duckings (joke lang!).

Wala akong payong, mainit ung sikat ng araw, nag-turtle neck pa naman ako. Gusto ko lang kasi talagang masuot ang orange shirt na to. Ipagpilitan ba on a hot sunny day? Buti at bitbit ko ung paypay ni Tinx. Ok naman ung field trip. Coagulation, flocculation, backwashing, polymer, chlorination, la la la.

Around 10:45, bumalik na ako ng UP. I went here sa office para magpalamig kc ang hapdi na ng balat ko, especially sa mukha...Nasa computer na ako ng bigla akong najerby. Akala ko mapipigilan pa, hindi na pala!!!

Patakbo akong pumunta ng CR, nagkahulog-hulog na ung alcohol and tissue holder, ni hindi ko na na-lock ung office...pagka-upo ko...shwwaaaak!!! Walang preno, ang tagal...hay, naisip ko tuloy na di ko makakayanan ung kahihiyan pag sa Balara umatake ung tiyan ko. Baka nga talaga sira na ung gatas....hay.

Nakakainis na Meralco.

Typhoon Tirade

I could imagine kids leaping in jubilation...it's not raining candies outside nor is Santa in town already. Due to "Marce" (latest catastrophy to hit the country), classes are suspended. Sure, this is the time of rejoicing for students and once or twice, when I was still in school, I used to lead that tribal dance of thanksgiving.

Now that I have crossed the line and swapped roles with those I formerly hated or feared or admired, I now know that teachers too are happy with cancellation of classes. For various reasons like unprepared lessons, aching vocal chords, a chance to stay home and watch my favorite noon-time show, teachers dont exactly whine and gnash our teeth when a chance to skip school comes around. We are all alike in a way.

Over a cup of hot coffee, I get to thinking what these dark and cold nights mean to me. My bed is very convincing in its campaign to have me back in its comfortable silky sheets. The seed of guilt therefore grows to the size of a large conifer once it hits me that I have not done anything useful at all! The entire day! What good is my existence on a storm?

I decide to go outside and do something that can be interpreted as "constructive" in any way but my umbrella does not resemble itself anymore. It has been reduced to a messy tangle of metals and semi-permeable nylon such that using it will cause me more embarassment than singing in the rain like a wet chick (pun intended). The average life span of all the umbrellas I ever owned (wether made in China, Taiwan, or Japan) was about 4 months. Of course, it lasts long over the summer because it does not take a heavy beating from wind and rain. Still, when the wet months come and I am in dire need of a trusty umbrella, it fails me. They all do.

Marce is now just a memory. And my umbrella is officially dead (not that it was ever alive). No funeral services needed because it got lost anyway (went off to umbrella heaven without much ado). If ever there was one created by the Great Umbrella Maker just for me, I hope to find it before the next rainy season.